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George Galloway manages to last only 2 minutes being interviewed by Channel 4’s Cathy Newman before leaving. Newman said that she “had at least 10 more questions to go when he ripped his mic off”. The video is below:

treborc

Bored more then likely of the stupid question the BBC tried to trap him over the tanker strike and he ended the interview by saying, do you mind me saying that is the most stupid question .

The fact is he killed labour off by being a politician

John Ruddy

In your haste to bash the BBC, you neglected to check whether this interview was by the BBC. In fact it was the actually rather good Channel 4.

http://twitter.com/gonzozzz dave stone

The media are uniform in their treatment of Galloway – take the Paxman interview when Galloway won in London – the Oxbridge entitlement brigade so easily have their noses put out of joint when a person from the lower orders does the business.

John Ruddy

You mean the Paxman one on election night 2005? One of Paxo’s best – Galloway looked a right ****

treborc

But he does not like a right**** now does he.

John Ruddy

Actually, yes he does. Any politician who walks out of an interview looks stupid. Regardless of how “right” they are to.

treborc

Lucky then labour has nobody that does that then.

http://twitter.com/gonzozzz dave stone

It was Paxman’s attitude, accusing Galloway of “having driven [Oona King] out of parliament” – as if the electorate didn’t have a say in it! Paxman displayed an understanding of politics as a top people’s game – an approach common to the entitlement brigade. The same approach underpins New Labour’s attitude to the membership.

They don’t like it but ultimately they depend on the electorate. And the electorate can and will bite back.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=697126564 Paul Halsall

I think Cathy Newman is usually a pretty decent and thorough reporter.

treborc

Still a great put down.

Jimbennett

Galloway: if a backside could have three cheeks, then Labour, the Lib dems and Toiries would be those cheeks…

Nail on the head I’d say!

http://twitter.com/gonzozzz dave stone

“Tidal wave of alienation” – nuff said.

Trevor Hyatt

George gave her 90 seconds too long – the contrived point about Bradford not being the ‘biggest swing’ disregarded contemporary political context and was deployed simply to undermine him. Then on to next facetious point about the Arab Spring – an unthinking literal interpretation of George’s euphemistic reference to a ‘Spring’moment. A classic case of a mediocre journalist getting in the way of the news.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Moore/648163551 Robert Moore

Galloway Flail or…. Galloway Fail?

Tonystrad

Excellent points made by Galloway and a sensible response to a rude and crude interviewer

http://twitter.com/George_Berridge George Berridge

I agree that the county is certainly alienated from the Con-Dem government and the ever sliding-to-centre Labour party.

That said, Galloway is still a reprehensible crook and the idea of him being in any position of power makes me feel just a little bit ill.When I heard he was pelted with eggs, I rather though that a more suitable ammunition could have been chosen… like hammers or – more fittingly – barrels.

Jimbennett

With George Galloway’s success in the courts suing people for defamation, I think the publishers might like to consider two things:
– the above assertion that Galloway is a crook
– the incitement to violence against an elected politician

treborc

Galloway looks like a normal politician these days, after the mess politics are in, show me a good solid politician and I will show you ten who are not

DaveCitizen

Someone needs to remind George that these days MPs are supposed to be thinking only about well paid work outside Parliament, getting a promotion from the ‘leader’ or what U-turns to perform. He’ll have to get a crash course from Clegg!

RogerMcC

Galloway’s point about no party to the left of Labour winning a seat in a by-election when Labour is in opposition is an absurd one as he presumably knows that before Thursday only 8 MPs to the left of Labour have ever been elected in any of the over 20,000 parliamentary constituency contests since the LRC was founded in 1900.

These include Shapurji Saklatvala, Phil Piratin and Willie Gallagher for the CPGB, Galloway himself in Bethnal Green – none elected in by-elections.

Victor Grayson did win a by-election in Colne Valley 1907 as a revolutionary socialist but he stood as candidate of the ILP which was affiliated to Labour and only refused to join the fledgeling PLP in the Commons after he took his seat.

The three Common Wealth Party MPs elected during WW2 won Conservative seats when Labour was part of the wartime coalition and had agreed not to stand candidates against other government parties in by-elections – and in any case one could argue the toss about whether Common Wealth was genuinely to the left of Labour.

So with the possible exception of Victor Grayson his point is technically true but hardly tells us anything of interest.

RogerMcC

And if I was a true masochist I could probably spend the next few weeks researching and totting up the deposits lost by far left candidates over the past 112 years (or however long it is since they introduced deposits).

I’d guess we’re talking about at least a thousand.

RogerMcC

I’d forgotten about Dai Davies in Blaenau Gwent – won a by-election when Peter Law (who could arguably be #10 on the list above with Davies and Eddie Milne who won Blyth in Feb 1974 as Independent Labour #11 and #12) died in 2006.

in 2005 and 2006 Blaenau Gwent Peoples Voice certainly ran as ‘Real Labour’ and thus axiomatically were to the left of what was then still New Labour.

So for all his posturing about knowing left-wing history better than any newcaster Galloway is WRONG (unless you split hairs about the definition of ‘party’ in which case one could counter that George Galloway’s Orwellianly named fan club hardly counts as such either).

Sibboleth

Eddie Milne died in 1983.

Daniel Speight

Like him or hate him, Galloway deserves a modicum of politeness. If Cathy Newman can’t give that then you can’t blame him. Why should he waste time on her.

RogerMcC

He no more deserves a modicum of politeness than Nick Griffin does.

And since when was asking a question that a politician doesn’t want to answer impolite?

She was certainly far more courteous than Paxman was on election night 2005 when he and Galloway had almost exactly the same argument (sadly I remember every GE election night broadcast since 1979).

Daniel Speight

Problem was it seems that Newman was just engineering a Paxton moment. Nothing achieved at all.

Eugene

I am a Tory (reluctantly at the moment). However, give it to George. He deserves his sensational win. Quite a character with a strong intellect.

Winston_from_the_Ministry

She’d clearly been given a line to take, undermine him at every opportunity.

Backfired spectacularly in my humble opinion.

Julian Ware-Lane

You need to sort you tags out – G Galloway won in Bradford West

Robespierre

I think she comes across as quite rude and picky on everything he says. I don’t blame him for taking off his microphone. It he had said it was a sunny day then she would have countered that it wasn’t that sunny and there were clouds in the sky and that the previous week it had been nicer etc etc etc.

You may not like him, but like Boris and Ken, he does have that star quality, he is not a clone politician.

mikestallard

Results:
Galloway 6.
Interviewer: 0.

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